Mary Lou McDonald at the RDS in Dublin today. Photo: Damien Storan/PA
“We have to now prepare ourselves for the general election, whenever that will happen. We’ll take time to reflect.
“We’ve literally been on thousands, probably tens of thousands of doorsteps over the last number of weeks. We’ve listened very carefully to people.
“We now need to go and reflect on that, we need to learn from it. We will regroup. I am sorry that we didn’t do better.
“I know that we can do better and I am determined that we will do better.”
12.40pm
The possibility of potential recounts in Midlands–North-West has already been raised by a leading candidate in the constituency.
Luke “Ming” Flanagan said: “There are quite a lot of candidates here who are going to get a significant amount of votes and I think it’s nearly odds on that we’re going to have some sort of a recount – and potentially a recount at the end because I think it’s going to be close.
“So I predict – all I know is we booked a place to stay for the next week in Castlebar.”
12.20pm
The Finance Minister’s brother and a Tipperary TD’s daughter were among the first batch of councillors elected to local authorities around the country.
With more than 200 candidates elected out of 949, the rough outline indicates Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil holding steady, while Sinn Féin has not made the gains they had hoped for.
One of Fianna Fáil’s candidates in Dublin’s North Inner City area, Caio Benicio, the Brazilian delivery driver who intervened in the Parnell Square attack last November, will not win a seat.
He won just 3 per cent of first preference votes and was one of three Fianna Fáil candidates in the area.
Counting continues at TF Royal Theatre in Castlebar for the Midlands-North-West constituency in the European elections.
11.50am
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are in a straight shoot out to be the largest party in local government after this weekend, Newstalk political correspondent Seán Defoe reports.
There has been 30 extra council seats filled in the last two hours as counting across the country resumed.
A clear trend is emerging with Fine Gael leading the vote totals on over 24 per cent and Fianna Fál not far behind at over 23 per cent of the vote.
The story has been the collapse of the Sinn Féin vote. While still ahead of its 2019 result, a vote share of 11.4 per cent so far is still far behind where the party has been polling over the last four years.
One in five voters look to have opted for Independents.
The smaller centre-left parties have performed better than expected.
It’ll be a few hours before we have a better sense of the European election results, though each constituency will likely elect a Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Independent candidate. Sinn Féin will take seats, but how many is now a very open question.
10.30am
The Returning Officer at the Ireland South count centre has said he doesn’t expect the first count to be completed until very late tonight or tomorrow morning.
Two hundred and fifty staff are currently sorting around 715,000 European election ballot papers this morning before the count begins.
Invalid and spoilt papers will be bundled together and reviewed by candidates and count centre staff at around 9pm,. However, it may be later.
9.57am
Counting is underway in the RDS Simmonscourt for the Dublin European Parliament constituency.
It looks like there will be a fight for one, possibly two seats.
Regina Doherty of Fine Gael and Barry Andrews of Fianna Fáil are expected to take up two seats in Dublin, after partial tallies showed trends of both parties picking up votes across the county.
Niall Boylan is also showing well and will be in the mix for a seat.
After that, Sinn Féin’s local election performance in Dublin will be of huge concern as they ran both Lynn Boylan and Daithi Doolan.
Labour were in an optimistic mood and tallies show good first preferences for Aodhán Ó Ríordáin. Incumbent MEPs Ciarán Cuffe and Clare Daly are in danger of losing their seats.
One to watch though could be Brid Smyth of People Before Profit. Partial tallies looked decent for her and the party itself has had a good local election campaign in Dublin.
All that said, there is no tally being conducted this morning, so the full picture is far from clear.
8.20am
The story of the local elections has been the Government parties doing much better than expected, the Independents polling very well and Sinn Féin having a disappointing run
Today all eyes will be on the European elections with 14 seats up for grabs.
In Dublin, tallies indicate Fianna Fáil’s Barry Andrews and Fine Gael’s Regina Doherty will get the first two seats and Sinn Féin’s Lynn Boylan could get the third.
But it will be a dog fight for the final one with between Niall Boylan, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, Ciarán Cuffe, Brid Smith and Clare Daly all in the mix.
In Midlands–North-West, the limited tallies suggest sitting MEPs Luke Ming Flanagan and Maria Walsh are doing well – along with Fianna Fáil’s Barry Cowen and former broadcaster Ciaran Mullooly.
While in Ireland South, early indications are Billy Kelleher and Michael McNamara are performing strongly.
Official counting for the mayor elections in Limerick doesn’t begin until Monday, but tallies show John Moran out in a comfortable lead followed by Helen O’Donnell.
Source link : https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/live-local-and-european-election-results-all-eyes-turn-to-europe-1635436.html
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Publish date : 2024-06-09 10:30:00
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